Charlotte City Council

Charlotte’s City Council approved a slew of new spending measures at Monday night’s council meeting, including another $20 million for upgrades at Bank of America stadium—the second of three installments the city agreed to in 2013.

Council members also agreed to subsidize the NBA All-Star Game in 2017 to the tune of $3 million—half the event’s projected cost.

Monday night, after hearing from members of the public, the Charlotte City Council passed a new civil liberties resolution. The vote was unanimous.

The resolution reaffirms the right of citizens to peacefully demonstrate and to record the police in action. And it bars the police from arbitrarily stopping and searching individuals unless the police have a clear and articulated reason for that search.

The deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police in cities around the country has once again created a national question about how police interact with the minority communities they serve. In Charlotte, which experienced its own high-profile police killing two years ago, city officials unveiled their answer last night, in the form of a new “civil liberties policy.” It won cautious approval from both police and community groups.

Charlotte's city council will not shift local taxes and fees toward businesses as much as City Manager Ron Carlee proposed. The council and city staff have spent the past two months debating how to fill a $22 million hole in the city’s budget. That hole comes mostly from lost business taxes, after lower property reappraisals and the loss of a business license tax.

Charlotte’s City Council appears no closer to a consensus on how to fill a hole in the city’s budget deeper than in any year of the recession. City Manager Ron Carlee has proposed a complex mix of expense cuts and fee increases. But a key part of his plan hinges on raising property taxes while lowering a garbage fee that homeowners pay—it’s a complex scheme that hasn’t gained traction with the city council. The council once again debated that and other parts of Carlee’s plan Monday for more than an hour without obvious progress. Mayor Dan Clodfelter called a halt.

After another meeting to discuss the budget proposed by Charlotte city manager Ron Carlee, no clear consensus exists among the city council about a core component of the proposal: to raise property taxes while lowering overall costs for most residents.

City Manager Ron Carlee has recommended the Charlotte City Council raise property taxes, as one part of a multi-faceted solution to deal with a budget gap larger than in any single year of the recession. But most homeowners would actually pay less, Carlee says.